St. Louis Blues at Dallas Stars

St. Louis beat Dallas, 3-1, when these teams last met on January 12, but Dallas has won four of the last five in this series, holding St. Louis to 1.80 goals per game over that stretch.

St. Louis won its franchise record-breaking 11th consecutive game on Tuesday, marking the longest winning streak in the NHL since the 2016-17 season, when both the Blue Jackets (16) and Wild (12) had longer winning streaks.

Dallas has lost three straight and five of its last six entering tonight, but the team has won four of its last five on home ice. The Stars are averaging 3.00 goals at home this season and 2.03 away from home, the fourth-largest differential (+0.97) in the NHL.

Tyler Seguin scored his seventh goal of February last time out, now tying this month with January for his most goals in a month this season. He has scored 14 goals in 19 games since the New Year, the sixth-highest goals-per-game average (0.74) in the NHL in that span.

Ryan O'Reilly netted the game-winning goal in overtime for the Blues on Tuesday night. He now has 61 points this season, which ties his mark from last season and is the second-highest total in his career (64 in 2013-14).

Jaden Schwartz had his first multi-point game since December 18 on Tuesday. The Blues are 5-0-0 in his multi-point games this season. He has three goals in his last five games after scoring three goals in his first 41 games this season.

St. Louis carries a franchise-record 11 game winning streak into Dallas on Thursday to play the suddenly sliding Stars.

It's taken the Blues 52 seasons and 4,023 games to forge this many consecutive victories, so who's to say they'll be stopped by a Dallas team that's lost three straight and five of six while missing its top goaltender, even if it's a Central Division rival?

St. Louis set the record with a 3-2 overtime win at home over Toronto on Tuesday when Ryan O'Reilly netted the game winner.

"It means a lot," Blues interim coach Craig Berube told the St. Louis Post Dispatch after the win. "The credit goes to the players. They're the guys that made the record and went out and played the game and did the job. It's on them."

Less than two months ago, the Blues were mired near the bottom of the Western Conference standings and getting booed off the ice by the home fans after another in a series of miserable performances.

All that has changed over the past three weeks. St. Louis has forged a streak that's included five wins over teams that would make the playoffs if the postseason started today. Three of those wins, over Tampa Bay, Nashville and, most recently against Toronto, have come in overtime.

"It doesn't seem like we're satisfied," St. Louis defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said after Tuesday's win. "We just want to keep on rolling. A little bit of adversity never hurts you. We won the last couple of games pretty good, but sometimes a little challenge is good, and we stepped up to the plate."

Dallas, conversely, hosts the Blues in the middle game of a crucial three-game homestand that began with a 5-3 loss to Nashville on Tuesday.

The Stars got goals from Jason Spezza, Esa Lindell and Tyler Seguin in the defeat, the latter two of which came in a hectic 36-second stretch of the second period in which Dallas tied the game, took the lead, only for the Predators to respond 21 seconds later. Nashville then won the game with two goals in the third period.

The Stars lost for just the fifth time this season when they scored three goals or more, falling to 21-4-1 in those games.

Dallas is 1-4-1 in its past six games, coinciding with the absence of frontline goaltender Ben Bishop (upper-body). But Tuesday's loss, nor virtually any of the five games the Stars have dropped in the past two weeks, can be laid at the feet of backup netminder Anton Khudobin. Dallas' defense has played a role.

"We're getting away from what our identity is," Stars coach Jim Montgomery told NHL.com after the defeat. "We're a little too loose in our own end. We're not defending our house, and especially right in front of the net and the hash marks well enough. We're giving too many opportunities in that area, especially (in Tuesday's game), and that, ultimately, is costing us."

Lindell admitted that there was plenty to be tightened up, especially with the Blues coming to town.

"We're giving up too many goals in front of the net, that's something we can easily clean up," Lindell said. "We have to battle harder, take the sticks out, and make it easier for our goalie."

St. Louis and Dallas have met twice this season, with each team winning 3-1 in the opposition's home arena.